Local history is one step closer to being preserved.
The Thorold Museum is moving full steam ahead with their plans for a permanent home on Towpath St.
As ThoroldToday reported, the City is set to retire Fire Station 1 this year, and the museum's board wants to convert the building into a cultural centre.
To get their collection ready for display, the board has taken over the lease of the Canadian Corps Museum on Carleton St., which they plan to use as a temporary base of operations.
“It gives us an address,” explains the president of the Thorold Museum board, Malcolm Woodhouse, in an interview with ThoroldToday. “That will be our place which we're going to operate out of until the new museum is built.”
Due to a lack of volunteers, the Canadian Corps was not able to keep their museum open. By taking over the lease, the Thorold Museum is also inheriting all of the historical artifacts inside the building.
"Now we've got almost 300,000 items in our collection," says Woodhouse. “What we have to do is inventory them, get them together, start stacking them, shelving them, and prepping them for the new museum opening. The digitization of our collection is one of our main objectives as well. Then we can make everything available online.”
But the main goal is still the construction of a permanent home on Towpath St.
“It's going to be an $8M project to convert the old fire hall,” Woodhouse says. “We’ve asked for a federal grant of $6,272,000, which we're very optimistic we will get. And then the remainder is made up by the city.”
The Thorold Museum board has historically been an independent body, but they want to become part of the city, so they can work closely together on realizing the museum.
If all goes well, the Thorold Museum is aiming for a Fall 2025 grand opening.
“Because of its use, it's not a complex kind of building envelope that requires modifications,” Woodhouse says. “It's just big open spaces, basically. We have to add an elevator in there for accessibility to the second floor. We've got to put a new HVAC system in, solar panels on the roof, those kind of things that are going to be energy conservation.”
Woodhouse emphasizes that the Thorold Museum will be so much more than just an exhibition space.
“It's also going to be a cultural centre,” he says. “There will be spaces in which people will be able to gather to do things. We want to become part of the whole downtown experience, the historical aspect of the downtown, as well as sharing and participating with city-run events.”
Woodhouse already dreams of possible collaborations with local schools, as well as dinners that could be hosted in the space.
But first, funding needs to be secured.
“I'm very optimistic that we will get the funding and that council will endorse the project itself,” says Woodhouse. “It's going to be a great day for the City of Thorold, for us to finally be on track of having a museum that we can all be proud of.”
Local residents who want to take a look at the museum’s collection will have to wait a little while longer as there are no plans to open up the Canadian Corps Museum to the public.
